Folders and Views

You can add new folders and Not-in-View (NIV) folders to views. A NIV folder is a folder on you local disk that does not map to a folder in the StarTeam repository. A NIV folder is displayed as a white folder with a black, dotted border. NIV folders (as with NIV files) do not necessarily need to be added to a view, but you may choose to do so if you just created it and want it to be part of the view. However, if the folder is NIV because someone else deleted it from the view, you may need to delete it from your working folder.

If you add a new folder to a view, its working folder can be any of the following:

Any folder on your workstation specified by you.
A non-existing working folder specified by you and created by the application on your workstation. If the existing folder has child folders, one or more of them can also be added to the view.
A child of the parent application folder's working folder. If you do not specify a working folder, the application appends the new folder's name to its parent's complete working folder path.

Note: If the parent folder's working folder path length exceeds the operating system's maximum working folder path length of 254 characters (including (\) backslashes), the application does not allow you to create the new working folder. Also, you cannot add a folder to a view if the parent folder is read-only. The newly added folder assumes the parent folder's behavior, with a few exceptions. For example, the child folder might have the Branch On Change check box disabled because it makes no sense for this folder to branch.

New Folders

You can easily add folders to a project view. When a new folder is added:

The working folder for the new application folder does not have to belong to the same hierarchy as the other application folders’ working folders. However, if it uses the same drive letter as the root folder’s working folder, its path is stored as a relative path based on the path to the working folder of its parent folder in the hierarchy.
Its name can be different from the name of its working folder.
If the new working folder has child folders, a folder can be created for each of the children. Essentially, the newly added folder becomes the root of a new branch of folders. The application folders created for the child folders take the names of their working folders—at least initially. The working folders retain their relationship to the working folder that is the root of their hierarchy (that is, the working folder for the newly added folder). If you change the path to the newly added folder’s working folder, you also change the path to these working folders (unless you manually set an absolute path for these working folders).

StarTeam indicates folders on disk that do not map to a StarTeam folder with a Not-In-View icon. This indicates that you do not have the folder in the project view.

Existing Folders

You can add more folders to a view by moving them or sharing them from other views on the same server configuration. When a folder is moved or shared, it either keeps its absolute path or its relative path and is applied to its new parent folder. When a moved folder’s path is relative, it usually ends up with a different working folder than it previously had. When a shared folder’s path is relative, the shared folder has a different working folder in each location.

Note: The application does not allow you to create a working folder if a shared or moved folder’s new working folder path exceeds the operating system’s maximum working folder path length of 254 characters (including (\) backslashes).

Both the current view and the view from which the folders are moved or shared must use the same server configuration—and, therefore the same database and repository.